Speech recognition systems are generally known in the art, particularly in relation to telephony systems. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,914,692; 5,475,791; 5,708,704; and 5,765,130 illustrate exemplary telephone networks that incorporate speech recognition systems. A common feature of such systems is that the speech recognition element (i.e., the device or devices performing speech recognition) is typically centrally located within the fabric of the telephone network, as opposed to at the subscriber's communication device (i.e., the user's telephone). In a typical application, a combination of speech synthesis and speech recognition elements is deployed within a telephone network or infrastructure. Callers may access the system and, via the speech synthesis element, be presented with information prompts or queries in the form of synthesized speech. A caller will typically provide a spoken response to the synthesized speech and the speech recognition element will process the caller's spoken response in order to provide further service to the caller.
Although a substantial body of prior art exists regarding systems such as those described above, the incorporation of speech recognition systems into wireless communication systems is a relatively new development. In an effort to standardize the application of speech recognition in wireless communication environments, work has recently been initiated by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) on the so-called Aurora Project. A goal of the Aurora Project is to define a global standard for distributed speech recognition systems. Generally, the Aurora Project is proposing to establish a client-server arrangement in which front-end speech recognition processing, such as feature extraction or parameterization, is performed within a subscriber unit (e.g., a handheld wireless communication device such as a cellular telephone). The data provided by the front-end would then be conveyed to a server to perform back-end speech recognition processing.
It is anticipated that the client-server arrangement being proposed by the Aurora Project will adequately address the needs for a distributed speech recognition system. However, it is uncertain at this time what features and services the Aurora Project will enable. For example, efforts are currently under way to develop so-called telematics systems. Telematics systems may be broadly defined to include any technology concerning the delivery of information-based services to users and their devices in their vehicles. However, there does not appear to be any significant solutions defining how speech recognition technology can be incorporated into telematics systems. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a technique incorporating speech recognition technology into telematics systems, as well as other systems, in order to enable various services.